The FIFA World Cup has been going for 10 days now and it’s been filled with drama, excitement, boredom, expulsions, expletives, players, horns, grass, stadiums, fans. All the ingredients you’d expect really. Not sure what you were thinking if you didn’t.

The Vuvuzela, something that if you’ve watched the African Cup of Nations before you’ll know what it is, if you intend on watching any of the World Cup that starts in several hours, you will soon know what it is. And you will hate its existence.

And, by fray I mean a brawl or scuffle, not the ultimately more confusing definition of a piece of a worn piece of thread. Or, even the more confusing transitive verb definition, to frighten. Basically, what I’m getting at is that I’m back. I’ve returned to the world of confusing analogies, amusing anecdotes and general musings from whatever I like.

Well, let’s clarify something straight away, they are neither natural or cool. It’s a chip, a potato chip to be precise and the flavour is bordering ever so close to being an abomination. This is but one of many different flavours in Inner Mongolia but they aren’t fooling me, it’s all about the artificial additives.

Yes, that’s right, I’m changing employers again. This time I’m doing something fairly drastic, I’m moving to Perth.

The weekend before last saw me head over to the west for the first time in over a decade to watch the mighty Wallabies take on the Springboks at Subiaco Stadium. Not only had I never been to Subiaco before, I hadn’t seen a live rugby game outside of SA in quite a few years.

Whoever you are, who stole my iPhone. It happened a couple of weeks ago now and the sadness has dissipated somewhat since then but it’s still disappointing and violating. Of course, the insurance claim has already been put in and the money for it is on its way back to me so that I can pimp myself out with a new iPhone as soon as the quagmire of choice the telco’s have laid upon us clears up a little. It’s just too damn murky to see what you’re actually getting at the moment.

And the gunslinger followed.

If you recognise this quote then power be to you because it means you know the book series that I talk of. I have finally finished probably the greatest science-fantasy series that I have ever read, Stephen King’s The Dark Tower.

In this part of my coverage of my trip through Italy and Switzerland, I’ll go through some of the cultural quirks and things that I came across. In some cases it’s funny, in a few others, sad. Mostly amusing.

I’ve finally drummed up the effort to post up my thoughts regarding my recent european trip. I’ve been ever so slack of late, this has been in the works since I got back a few weeks ago but I’ve just not gotten around to it. Actually doing work while at work hasn’t helped at all either.